BUREAUCRACY

I have to get my Blue Badge renewed on Friday. I needed to make sure I have all I need to show the bureaucrats. My car tax exemption is not enough. I have to take reams or paperwork with me just to prove my entitlement. How other people, because they clearly do, manage to fiddle the system I have no idea. (There is a woman who goes to the pool who has a Blue Badge and she walks in to the GYM everyday and spends over an hour on the treadmill and step machine and she walks out afterwards!)Anyway, I am taking a whole pile of paperwork with me. My badge runs out the day we leave for Hungary, Saturday!

I have been busy washing the clothes to take with me. It is going to be hard to choose what to take, as I need clothes for 15 days. I can't take 15 pairs of DM's or shirts or trousers or sweaters so I will have to choose and I hate doing that. I dress each day according to how I am that day so deciding in advance is not good. What if I feel purple and all I have is yellow? Oh poor me.

The damn sock I have been trying to knit is still just striping. I will not give in. At least not yet! i WILL find something to do with it that will make it more interesting. The colours are fantastic, black, grey, brown and orange but it insists on knitting up in one row stripes! Ickety ick.

My stomach keeps lurching when I think about leaving the dogs for this long. I am not worried about Luque, Nechung and Shameless, they are going to a good friend and are of an age not to bother abotu it. I am concerned about he puppies who will be not not quite 12 weeks old and not quite 14 when we return. I hope they don't forget me. The two long coated show dogs, Micah and Whitney I am worried about as I have not trusted anyone to do this before. Not true, I did and it was disastrous (in 06 we went away and left what we thought was a friend here in our house. Big mistake.) I am going no matter what and I know I will have to fight the urge to return after four days.

I have almost finished another garter stitch sweater. I had planned to knit a stocking stitch wool sweater to take but have no time now. It isn't the knitting so much as the sewing up.

I am going to see Elizabeth today. I think I shall give the morphine a try. I will not use it every day and plan to take it only as a last resort. I have found that if I can get a good nights sleep with pain control, I don't need much in the way of pain killers during the day. I also hope to find out why I keep losing my balance.

John is doing much better. His Doctor called yesterday and asked me how he was sand I explained what he had done and he has given him the steroids and another set of antibiotics to take with us when go away. I did note that Stuart did not ask to speak to John and asked me the relevant questions. I think perhaps he has cottoned on to the fact that John doesn't say all he ought to. John will say he has a bit of a cough and I will say he keeps me up all night hacking away. John will say his chest feels a little tight and I will say he sounds like he can't breathe. His Doctor prefers my descriptions. Either he is a drama queen or he is a good doctor.

We are very fortunate with our Doctors. They treat us really well. They treat us as a married couple. They will give information about either one of us to either one of us. We see the doctor together if John is around. Elizabeth will ask about John and asks if he needs drugs and Stuart does the same. All the doctors in this Practice are Xtian and it would seem that Stuart is a fundy (I'll never understand how a clearly intelligent man can be.) yet there is no reticence on the part of them at all. I knwo Elizabeth is not a a fundy at all and another member of this practice is a vicar too(a female) and I get on very well with her. Great sens eof humour.